


Futile Devices

by nurfherder



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Humor, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 18:04:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/981976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nurfherder/pseuds/nurfherder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Words are and have always been to Dean such futile, futile devices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Futile Devices

So, the thing is: Dean is in love with Cas.

It’s not something planned; it simply is. It is plain and straightforward, presenting itself as if it were something much simpler. Like knowing the sky is blue, or that, when you jump, your feet will once again crash back against the ground. It’s knowing that wasps can sting you, but their cousins, the lady-bugs and the butterflies, only tickle against your fingers. Knowledge is innocence and wonder, a brilliant and easy appeal. One learns it, and it is truth.

But when Dean first learns that he’s in love, he is stunned. He can only imagine the look on his face, the electricity of information plummeting his gut into nothingness, leaving his jaw gaping and his eyes wide and staring. No one noticed, thankfully, or if they did, they pretended not to. The motion that started it had been so small, so inconceivable; Castiel had merely reached over to hand Dean a book--a freaking library book about demon-lore--and in the process, their fingers just happened to touch. And Dean just happened to jump. And he had thought to himself,  _well, isn’t that funny? Would never do that kind of thing if Sammy had handed me the book..._

And just like that--he knew.

It was like universes flashing before his eyes, opening up the whole of his existence, every fragment of memory and every moment with Cas presented before him in an absurd genuflect. It was obvious. He could see himself and hear himself, and he could see and hear Cas, and he wondered--he marveled--at how he had never noticed it before. How had he never noticed that he memorized the bending and weaving of Castiel’s skin? The angle of his profile, and the tender, expressive crinkle around his eyes as he tilts his head, staring at Dean shamelessly...

Dean’s heart begins to pound. The blood rushes through his ears and to his cheeks. His mouth goes dry. Oh yes, he must have been quite the sight to see.

It’s a nightmare, really. It’s strenuous to pretend that he doesn’t know--to pretend what is true is not true--and he obviously does have to pretend. He can not seriously consider actually telling someone about this. How could he even begin to tell Sam? Or worse, how could he tell Castiel? He can already hear Sam’s teasing, can already see Castiel’s confused stare… No. No one can know.

Cas is only just now human. Cas would have no idea--he could have no idea--that what Dean feels is so beautifully and horribly real.

Thus, a great period of compensation and denial begins. To counteract his almost constant stomach-ache and the giddy feeling he gets in his chest when Castiel looks at him, Dean buys porn magazines (of women, obviously). To further ignore his desire to stare at Castiel’s face, the need--the very strong, urgent need--to hug him, to hold him, Dean forces his gaze elsewhere. He buries himself in work. He buries himself in the TV when they are alone and probably should be talking. He looks at women and he comments on them. “She’s nice,” he hears himself compliment,  _thinking_ _my God, am I seventeen?_

Castiel looks over at the waitress. Sam rolls his eyes and sighs into the menu, ignoring them, but Castiel--he nods. “She is very aesthetically appealing.”

Dean’s smile freezes on his face. “Yeah?”

“Yes. Her hip to waist ratio is very intriguing. And,” he pauses, and he becomes almost contemplative, “Her face is lovely.”

Dean swallows and quickly fixes a look close to normal onto his face as Castiel glances over. “I imagine you’re interested in her?” he says.

Dean shrugs. He is nonchalant, obviously. Very, very nonchalant. He should win an award, for fuck’s sake, he’s so goddamn nonchalant. “Well, I dunno. I mean, yeah, obviously. She’s a girl, so...”  _What the hell_ _._  “So, I mean--what, are you? Interested?”

Castiel smiles softly. “I suppose I could be, yes.” He says it like it’s a marvel of a thing, to be interested in a woman. Everything’s new, and everything’s full of wonder to him. Dean remembers feeling that way. He remembers staring at a girl like it was the first time he’d ever seen one. He remembers staring at her curves and needing to be near them. It had been so perfectly easy.

How he wishes it could feel that way now.

Just how exactly did he end up in love with a man anyway? He begins to try and undo it, like it’s a spell from a wicked witch. And then, of course, Dean hates himself even more. Why exactly should it be wrong of him to have feelings for the same sex? Why should he care? He shouldn’t care. He doesn’t. It’s not as though he doesn’t still like women. For example, page 33 of  _Busty Beauties_  is a fold out guide to heaven. He looks at it and he knows, he is confident: he likes girls--curvy, slim, big, doesn’t-give-a-damn-what girls--so much better than men! He tests himself. He sneaks out of the bunker one day and takes a peek at a gay porn magazine.  _See_ _?_  he thinks to himself.  _See that? That’s not appealing, that’s..._

_That’s..._

It is, in fact, a little appealing.

Not in an obvious way, and certainly not in a way he’s expecting--but his mission to prove that he is so straight he can undo the workings of his heart fails miserably. What makes it worse is that the magazine somehow gave him new ideas. So the next time he sees Castiel, it is…

It is not good at all.

He thinks about telling Cas. He lays there at night and he thinks about it so often. About padding gently down the hall to Castiel’s room, knocking on the door, and saying  _Hey, Cas?_  And Castiel would be awake. And Cas would say,  _Yes, Dean?_

_\--Can I come in for a second?_

_\--Of course._

Dean would walk into the dark and sit down at the end of the bed. Castiel would sit up and turn on the light. They would blink across at each other...

Where his mind goes from there varies. Sometimes he confesses. When he does, his vision grants either one of two outcomes. The usual course is that Castiel says,  _This is very interesting Dean. I did not know you were attracted to men, blah blah blah, obtuse observation noted here, though I appreciate your blah blah, I do not intend to blah blah_ _…_  In short, Castiel is kind and true to form, but most definitely not interested. Not interested at all.

The other outcome... Dean sometimes skips ahead in the other outcome. He skips the mushy dialogue--because that’s always the worst part anyway--and finds himself lip to lip and chest to chest with Castiel, wrapping his arms around him, laying them back down on the bed...

Dean thinks these things at night when he’s alone for a reason.

Three weeks of this--three weeks of knowing himself finally, allowing himself to fantasize and imagine, three weeks of denial and despair--has left him feeling empty. Dean wants Cas. He wants him, he loves him. And he will never have him.

All of those fantasies, all of that build up, and Dean knows it’s all for naught. He knows what the real outcome of a confession will be. Castiel is human now, but he hasn’t changed. He’s still awkward, bumbling--Dean knows he is unreliable, and Dean figures each and every day he will wake up to a resident bunker population of two instead of three.

Dean wants to talk. He needs to talk. The words sit in his throat and fester in his gut, almost making him vomit. He wants to talk to Sam--he stares at him sometimes, to the point where Sam acknowledges him with a “What?”--but Dean can’t. He opens his jaw and flubs and there is nothing. He becomes angry and even more confused--he starts taking it out on all the wrong people. All because Castiel handed him a book in the library. All because Castiel fell and became human and was suddenly around all the time. All because Dean had to find him in Purgatory. Because Cas saved Sam’s life. Cas saved Dean’s life. He was the angel who fought through hell to piece every bit of Dean back together on that bright and cold September morning. Forty years of hell to sunshine, and Castiel was there.

He left his mark. The hand-print has faded, but Dean can still see the outlines if he looks closely enough. He wonders at his insides, at his heart. Surely there must be a handprint there as well. Castiel owns it plainly enough.

It’s a miracle of age and wisdom that Dean doesn’t react any worse than he does. A younger version of himself, a version perhaps only as young as when he first met Castiel, might have found it easy to be vindictive, purposefully hurtful to an irreparable point. He might have been able to shove Castiel away so hard that Castiel truly never came back.

But Castiel stays. He stays when Dean gripes at him for no reason, or is extra hard on him for not being able to keep up the slack. At the end of each day, after each barb is thrown, Dean watches Castiel turn out the lights and close his door, and he thinks, I’ll never see him again. But he does. Every day, every morning. And Dean doesn’t know if that makes everything better or so very much worse.

So Dean bitches and moans, and pokes and prods, and eventually he wakes the dragon. Castiel slowly but surely begins to bite back. He had let so much roll off his back, but after about a week of dealing with Dean’s seemingly sourceless irritation, Castiel plants his feet on the ground and gives just as much ire in return. And suddenly it’s almost fun, bickering with him--no--it  _is_  fun. They snap back and forth, and they are evenly matched. It’s a dance, and it isn’t until Dean sees Castiel smile, and feels a smile on his own face, that he realizes something has changed. His anger is slowly fading, and Castiel isn’t angry either. They morph in their daily tete-a-tete, and Dean swears that it’s almost like flirting.

His heart pounds in his chest. He could do this, he thinks. He could do nothing but this. Never tell Castiel, never kiss him, never hold him--just flirt with him, like this, back and forth for forever. Never looking for any other partner, never needing anyone to fill up that lonely void. Dean has his brother, he has his friends. And he could have Cas. Like this. In a beautiful, verbal dance, for as long as they both live. Yes, he thinks, he would like that very much.

And so it goes. The weeks are months, and the months are suddenly a year, and Dean Winchester and Castiel dance. Every so often, their eyes linger too long. And every so often, they will reach a hand out to the other and accept it; the heat of their fingers combined is enough to light up Dean’s heart so the whole universe can see. But life is not stagnant, and by the very nature of their occupation, Dean knows that life is brief. In his sixth year of knowing Castiel, nearing their seventh anniversary of-a-sort, the world finds itself once again coming to an end.

It does this, of course, several times a year, often many times in just one month. Dean, Sam, and Castiel--they are well practiced in apocalypses. It is, after all, the reason the three of them came together at all. But this one… this one is different. No one says it, in so many words, at least not in the beginning, though they may all have been thinking it. As the day of battle nears and they draw closer and closer together, Dean finds himself looking at Castiel and realizing--once again, the dawning brilliance and fear of his realizations--looking is no longer enough. He has been fooling himself; it has never been enough. And now, the time has come. He has to open his mouth and speak, with whatever inept elegance his words can offer: he has to say something.

Sam looks over and between them, his brother and the former angel, and he frowns in sympathy, his eyes warm. He must have figured everything out so long ago, never saying anything out of love for his brother. So he stands now and gives them the room, squeezing his brother’s shoulder as he goes, leaving them standing alone in the darkness. Dean smiles weakly, and when he meets Castiel’s eyes, his throat seems to close up. Castiel is watching him. Always, the intensity of his look, so shameless and so very, very kind. So full of… Dean doesn’t dare to think it.

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean breathes heavily. One year ago, Castiel passed him a book in a library; Dean sees their fingers meeting and feels the electricity like it was only yesterday. “Hey.”

Dean reaches out a hand. Words. He suddenly laughs, thinking of the absurd collection of porn he bought to deny himself this, intimacy with another man. With Castiel. Whose fingers are reaching out to his and knotting them carefully together.

Their palms meet; their free hands slide up to unite as well. “It’s almost September,” Dean whispers.

“I know.” Castiel says. He is watching their hands, a beautiful, soft smile on his face. Dean’s heart is on fire.

“Did I ever--” he pauses, and swallows. His shoulder tingles and he focuses his memory there, on the feeling of being swallowed up and rebirthed. He doesn’t truly remember it--he can’t, really--but sometimes he thinks he can recall a light. He thinks of the dark and the pain and the horrors that slowly, slowly escaped from him. He speaks quietly. “Were you holding me?”

“Hmm?” Castiel looks up, and Dean can barely breathe the question again.

“When you saved me, when you...” he tugs on their hands. “When you pulled me out of hell. Were you holding me?”

Castiel leans his head to the side; something so clearly  _him_  that Dean smiles. Castiel takes a step forward. “You mean, did I have to embrace you to pull you from hell?”

“I--I guess, yeah...”

“As opposed to, say, just grabbing you by the collar?” Castiel smirks, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“You know what I mean.”

And Castiel takes another step forward. Their faces are so close that Dean can hear the sound of Castiel’s breathing, can feel the heat radiating off of his skin. He shuts his eyes on instinct, leaning his head parallel to Cas’s, their hands held down between them. “Yes Dean,” Castiel whispers. “I held you.”

Dean opens his mouth and feels his lips tremble as he says, almost inaudibly. “How?”

Castiel tips forward and separates their fingers. He places them flat against Dean’s chest and slowly, steadily, works his right hand to Dean’s left shoulder. “First,” he says softly, “I gripped you here. You burned, and I burned--I did not take you without a fight.”

Dean grunts. His eyes are still shut against the nearness of Cas, and he leans into him, hearing the brush of their clothing as Castiel moves himself around and behind, his palms trailing across Dean’s shoulders. “Then,” he says, and Dean can feel Castiel’s breath on the back of his neck as he slides his hands under Dean’s arms, tucking Dean close against his chest and gripping him tight. “Then I held you here. And we rode through the grabbing hands and the fire, and I placed your soul back into this body.”

“Cas...” Dean leans his head back, and Castiel buries his forehead between Dean’s shoulders.

“I held you, Dean...”

Dean opens his eyes. And he takes a deep breath. He turns in Castiel’s arms, and he opens his mouth to speak. To finally say it, to finally say everything, to speak and to own and to have and to give. He looks down into Castiel’s face, the face he first memorized so long ago he cannot recall when, the nose and mouth and eyes; he doesn’t speak at all. On the eve of the end of the world, Dean’s open mouth is put to a different use. Words are and have always been to him such futile, futile devices. So his lips say what his voice cannot; his tongue paints a message against its partner.

 _Thank you_ _,_  and:

_I love you._

**Author's Note:**

> See: "Futile Devices" by Sufjan Stevens


End file.
